


Written On My Skin, Please Write Me Again

by Wolves_of_Innistrad



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Canon Compliant, Kinda, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:07:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21587332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolves_of_Innistrad/pseuds/Wolves_of_Innistrad
Summary: Eddie’s almost 5 the first time words appear on his arm. He’s too young to know what it means but his parents record it anyway. When they notice the words are different the next day they realize Eddie is one of the special ones, the ones that can speak to their soulmates through their soul mark instead of simply getting their first words written on their skin, they get the first and last sentence of each day.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz
Comments: 124
Kudos: 398
Collections: 9-1-1 ▶ Edmundo "Eddie" Diaz / Evan "Buck" Buckley, Buck and Eddie are Soulmates





	1. Disconnect

Eddie’s almost 5 the first time words appear on his arm. He’s too young to know what it means but his parents record it anyway. When they notice the words are different the next day they realize Eddie is one of the special ones, the ones that can speak to their soulmates through their soul mark instead of simply getting their first words written on their skin, they get the first and last sentence of each day.

Eddie’s a kid and soulmates don’t mean much to him, so he really only starts thinking about it when he’s around 10. He’s seen different words appear on his arms but never anything important, never anyone trying to contact him like he’s heard in some movies. When he asks his parents they explain that his soul mark didn’t arrive until he was 5, which means his soulmate is at least 4 years younger than him, so they’re probably not mature enough yet to understand the bond.

He nods, taking his parent’s advice and trying to focus on school and growing up, but some nights he stares at the words, writing them down to see if there's ever any pattern. And that’s when he notices how many times the last words of the night are things like “I’m sorry,” or “I’m hungry,” or “please no!”

His little heart breaks when he shows it to his parents and both of them go from smiling to frowns in a moment.

“Mijo, sometimes… Things aren’t what they appear. Maybe it looks bad, but we only know one sentence, a few words from each day. Try not to worry.” His father is a kind man, but stern. “Besides, it is not our fate to interfere, you remember you can’t give or ask for names, locations, things that would lead you to your soulmate soon, or the bond can be severed, that is the cost of the magic that gives the soul marks.”

“Ok papa.” Eddie wants to argue, wants to say that it sounds like his soulmate is hurting, but he sees his father’s eyes and tries to ignore it.

The years pass and Eddie keeps a record of things, sees how the marks change slowly sometimes seeming for the better and others seeming worse, one day he makes sure when he goes to bed to say “are you ok?” It’s the first time he’s really tried to directly contact his soulmate.

Eddie doesn’t expect an answer, but when he wakes up he gets a simple “I’m fine.”

His heart flutters, it’s the first time they’ve ever truly spoken. He’s fifteen now, that means his soulmate is around ten or eleven if his parent’s calculations are correct, which is around the time he himself had started seriously paying attention to his marks. A smile covers his face and he sits at his desk, writing in his journal, thinking of what to say. Finally he settles on “That makes me happy.” It’s simple, but he hopes his soulmate understands.

The entire day Eddie is filled with hope, with a lightness in his chest. He mentions it to his friends, says he had his first contact with his soulmate and they’re all jealous. He’s never met anyone else with the linked marks like he and his soulmate have, even if he knows they exist. It’s rare, but he’s happy to share this.

When he lays down to sleep he sees his soul mark has arrived, which means his soulmate has already fallen asleep, said their last words for the day. He traces his fingers over the words, “I love you ...” and even though they fade off at the end, meaning that his soulmate said someone else’s name, he smiles, imagining the words are meant for him.

“I don’t know you yet, but I love you.” Those are the words he falls asleep with on his lips, hoping wherever they are his soulmate wakes to them with a smile.

When Eddie awakens the next morning, the lazy rays of sun drifting through his curtains he yawns, stretches little before he gets up and goes to his desk. Slowly he rolls the sleeve of his shirt up to see what, if any, message he’s gotten from his soulmate.

“What?” He says, then slaps himself for using up his first sentence like that.

There written on his arm is just one word, two letters, “No.” Eddie doesn’t understand, he remembers what he’d said last night, it was deep, emotional, and his soulmate just said no. That wasn’t really even a proper response. Shaking his head he thought for a moment before writing down what he wanted to say tonight, because maybe it was a mistake, maybe his soulmate had been woke up by someone else and the “No” wasn’t meant for him, wasn’t in reply to him but something else happening.

That was it, he was sure of it.

When he goes to bed there are no words, so he gathers his courage and says what he’s been thinking of all day. “Was that no meant for me?”

The next morning he sees “Yes.” written in black ink across his wrist and he cries.

It’s embarrassing that his words for today are going to be “mama!” but he can’t help it. It feels like a rejection, his mother tries to assure him it’s okay, that his soulmate is young and there is time to change. That they have no idea what’s going on. Eddie wants to believe her, wants to think that they are young and he has time for his soulmate to love him the way he already feels he loves his soulmate without meeting them.

He’s just not sure he does after the next few days go by with no answer to his questions or comments.

His soulmate is ignoring him, their words are just mindless drivel or regular conversation with other people.

Finally Eddie’s confidence wavers, he tries one last time.

“Please talk to me?” he almost begs, screwing up his eyes to not cry as he tries to force himself to sleep.

“No.”

The words hit him like a sack of bricks on his chest and he sobs. He knows its just some stupid kid, that they are younger than him, that they don’t understand how important and rare their bond is, but it hurts. It hurts so much that Eddie grabs a panuelo from his drawer, he wraps it tight around the wrist that holds his soul mark and he tries to forget about it. Push down the pain he feels, the way his father is always saying, even if his mother tells him not to listen.

He thinks maybe his father understands better, knows that feeling nothing is worse than the pain.

Eddie can only go a few days without looking at first. His eyes dragging to it in class, but every time he looks there’s no contact, just the random snippets of a day lived somewhere far away.

A few days turns to weeks, then months, pushing down the pain of his soulmate’s rejection until he almost forgets.

Almost.

Eddie’s 19, in basic training, when he notices something in the shower on his arm. It’s been so long since he’s read the words scrawled across his skin, but the sight of them now makes his heart sink into his stomach.

“I wanna die.”

Those three words sit on his wrist, taunting him. He thinks back to his journals, abandoned years ago at home, how he’d always kept up with what his soulmate had said, even before he’d ever responded, and sometimes even after he stopped replying. He’d always felt his soulmate was in trouble, a home that wasn’t healthy, but this felt like a cry for help.

He doesn’t know how he can sleep after this, but he needs to, he has to be awake at 0500, and besides, he can’t send a message to his soulmate unless he falls asleep.

Twenty minutes of agonizing over what to say makes him feel like he’s fifteen again, but he smiles as he finds the words he wants to say.

“Don’t give up, because I love you and I need you.”

Shouts and trumpets wake him up and he groans, before slapping a hand over his own mouth. He hasn’t had to do that in years but the motion comes easily. He scrambles to get ready, even as he tries to catch glimpses of what his wrist says.

God he hopes it says something.

When his drill sergeant comes in he salutes, but he doesn’t say anything. The man notices stops in front of him.

“I can’t hear you recruit!”

Eddie’s eyes go wide and his lips stay sealed, he gestures to his arm as best he can without words.

The soul mark there reads “But I’m so alone.”

The man gives him a look, face stony. “First and last?” he asks and Eddie nods frantically.

“You’ve got two minutes private. You’ll be doing extra work to make up for those two minutes. Go.”

Eddie runs back to his cot, thinking as fast as he can on what he can say to his soulmate, this is important and he needs them to know he’s there for them. He can’t lose them.

“I’ll find you, and you’ll never be alone again.”

The words come to him as he says them and he smiles. There’s no time to focus though, he has to run out to training. It’s a brutal day, made worse by his little incident, but when he goes to sleep there are no words. He whispers “I promise” into the night air, hoping his soulmate sees it before they sleep.

“Don’t.”

That’s all his wrist says when he wakes up and he feels heartbreak. He can’t do this again, can’t be rejected, not when his soulmate so desperately needs him. “Don’t shut me out!” he says harshly, panicked.

No words come to him, even as the hours pass, his day goes on, but nothing ever appears on his wrist.

When Eddie wakes up the next day there are no words and his stomach drops.

“No, no, please!” His words are breathless, whispered under cover of darkness as he traces the veins and clear skin that should have his soulmates last words from the night before.

But there’s nothing there.

Eddie wants to cry, but everyone is around him getting ready, he has to put it away, push it down. Maybe his soulmate just is too depressed to talk, or sick.

It’s a false comfort, he knows, but he has to move past the pain and fear and worry. He’s a soldier, he can’t do this. He can’t be that weak.

Even if it’s his soulmate.

The days move on and no words come, a few days, a week, two months.

Nothing ever appears.

When he shows his mother at the end of basic training she cries, and for the first time he lets himself cry. He forgets to be hard, forgets to push the pain away, lets it all bubble up and spill everywhere. It’s messy and awful and he feels broken in a way he can’t describe. It’s like he’d not let himself feel any of it, to acknowledge what clearly happened, that his soulmate had committed suicide. Everything hit him at once though now that he was home.

He laid in bed for an entire day when he should have been celebrating.

“Hey kiddo.” His father’s voice breaks him out of his silent sobs. Eddie tries to sit up but the man pushes him back down. “I know this is hard I can’t… I can’t imagine what it’s like. It’s not fair.” He takes a deep breath, and slowly he sets something down in front of Eddie. “I got you this. I thought, you might want it. It’s, maybe it’s a bad idea this soon, I don’t know, but I thought you might want it.”

Eddie can’t speak, he just nods and takes it, holds it in his fingers and feels the synthetic skin. He knows what it is, and he both hates and loves his father for it. Idly he wonders what the words say, not that it matters.

“What’s your name?” It’s so false, so hollow and stupid and nothing like what his soulmate sounded like. But that’s the point, the Soulskins were for people with soulmates that had already died, or whose words were so bad or explicit that it was impolite to show them.

He waits until the night before he returns to the army to put it on, feels it mold to his skin. It’s not a graft, he can take it off whenever he wants, or can leave it on as long as he wants without ever feeling it.

Eddie doesn’t take it off for the next eleven years.

In that time he meets Shannon who also doesn’t have a soulmate, has Chris who has normal words, “Do you need help with your crutches?” At first he wonders if Chris will be injured, but when the CP diagnosis comes in Eddie understands. At least he has a soulmate Eddie thinks, glad his son won’t be alone.

Alone like how he feels now that Shannon left him. He knows it wasn’t all her fault, he’d failed her, failed his family too. The army was all he knew to deal with his emotions, to repress and suppress and forget. It had helped when his soulmate died, or at least Eddie told himself it did. In truth he’d never gotten over it, never probably would. To lose a soulmate before you ever met them felt wrong, but he’d tried. He’d tried to be there for them. But it was just another person that left him. Another person that he wasn’t enough for.

When Eddie comes to work for the LAFD he takes to it naturally. It’s the first day of his new job when Bobby gets an email that says a firefighter with a Soulskin was injured badly when it caught fire and grafted to their skin, nearly causing the entire arm to be engulfed in flames.

“As new department policy, any of you with a Soulskin need to remove them before coming to work. I’m sorry, I know that can potentially be troublesome or painful, but it’s a new requirement. It’s for your safety and the safety of those we’re sworn to protect.” Bobby gives them an apologetic look, especially as his eyes land on Eddie who’s fidgeting at the words. He explains the rest of the email before letting them go get ready for the day.

Eddie averts his gaze, scratches at his arm absently. Doesn’t see how anyone else reacts as he hopes he can at least hide it until later tonight. The day goes much worse and much better than he expected, he likes most of his new coworkers, except maybe Buck who is giving him a headache. Then again, by the end of the day he feels like they’ve bonded over the grenade thing and he thinks maybe this can work. Maybe he can make a home here for him and Chris.

Before he goes to bed he remembers Cap’s words and sighs, heading to the bathroom. He hasn’t taken it off in so many years that he dreads seeing the bare skin again. Sighing he lets his nails rest against his forearm, slowly digging in, just this side of painful before he finds the seam, tugs and pulls like it’s a really bad sunburn and slowly peels it down. He tosses it on the counter and moves to wash the skin when his eyes are caught on his bare wrist.

Or rather, the wrist that should be bare but instead has dark inky marks on it.

“No… it’s just, the marks from the Soulskin have worn off on you from not removing it, that’s all Eddie don’t be stupid.”

He grabs a bar of soap and frantically scrubs at his wrist, washing it in the sink until the last of the adhesive from the Soulskin is gone, but the words remain.

They’re clearer now without the gunk, clean and shiny on his skin and Eddie collapses on the floor staring at them.

“Fuck, I’m late!” and “Finally, sleep!” are etched into the skin and Eddie doesn’t know if he wants to cry, throw up or thank God. His fingers trace and retrace the words, counting each letter, memorizing them like a rosary prayer. He didn’t think he’d ever see words here again, doesn’t understand how when his soulmate went months without saying a word. He’d known they must be dead, had blocked it off and pushed it down all these years but now…

But now he had to wonder if he was the one that had been ignoring his soulmate. Maybe they were sick, or injured and couldn’t speak. That seemed to make the only sense, but still, it had been months and not a single word. Except Eddie hadn’t looked in all those years, maybe his soulmate had tried contacting him since then. He’d have never known thanks to the Soulskin.

Eddie kicked out at the cabinet beneath the sink, using the palm of his hand to rub at his eyes.

“Daddy?” He hears, startling him as he looks up with watery eyes at his son leaning against the jamb of the door with tired, but worried eyes trained on him.

“It’s okay Chris, daddy just got a bit of a shock.”

“A shock? Like lightning?”

Eddie chokes out a laugh, hollow and shrill, but he moves on his knees to hug his son. “No, just, something I thought was gone. I found it again.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah it’s good. It’s really, really good.”

“I’m glad you found it daddy. SO you’re okay?” Christopher is always so concerned about him, especially in moments like these. Eddie tries to hide his emotions as best he can, to be strong for his little boy, but some times when he has nightmares and flashbacks to the war he can’t protect him. This is one time at least the tears are for a good reason.

“I’m okay. Let’s get you back in bed okay?”

Chris nods, reaching up for a hug and Eddie pulls him into his arms, kissing the top of his head and hugging him tight before taking him back to bed and tucking him in.

“Goodnight Christopher.” The words are nearly the last thing he says as he collapses into bed, but his eyes slot open as he remembers. He has to say something, has to let his soulmate know that it was a mistake, that he hasn’t been avoiding them.

“I’m sorry, I thought you were dead.” It’s all he can think to say. It’s not much, but he needs his soulmate to know why he hasn’t spoken to them in so many years. So much lost time. He falls asleep with the taste of the words on his tongue, with thoughts swirling around his head like butterflies and with a feeling of hope he hasn’t had since he was a kid.

Buck doesn’t really keep tabs on his soulmate anymore, he’s long since realized the person has given up on him. He had wore a Soulskin for the last few years, ever since he got the hint that his soulmate was in love with someone else, had met someone and forgot about him. So many years he’d had hope the person that told him not to give up, that they loved him, that they’d find him, really meant it.

All of that is to say that it’s for that reason when he remembers to take his Soulskin off in the morning he groans “Fuck I forgot about this.”

He peels it off, washing away the synthetic adhesive that blurs his wrist only to glance at the words. He knows he shouldn’t, that he’s probably just going to see a goodnight to the person’s lover. Instead what he sees makes his eyes bug out.

“I’m sorry, I thought you were dead.”

That can’t be for him. His soulmate couldn’t have thought… But as his mind flits through his memories he remembers. He remembers when it happened, remembers that it was over six months they’d said he was in the coma. Six months, half a year. That was more than enough time to assume someone was dead with no new words each day.

“They had a Soulskin too...” Buck says quietly, the words lost in the silence of his empty apartment. He knows that has to be it, that it’s the only reason they wouldn’t have noticed Buck’s frantic pleas for help, for attention, for any kind of contact with the one person meant for him. The hatred and apathy he once felt for his soulmate solidify into something more, something he’s not quite sure how to deal with.

They fell in love with someone else, but they thought he was dead. What did that mean for him, for them? Would they leave their lover, their spouse maybe, for him? Did he want them to? Could Buck break up a family like that, even if it meant having his soulmate?


	2. Chapter 2

“Fuck, I forgot about this.” Those are the words Eddie reads on his skin the next morning, and he’s so happy to see them again he barely registers that his own message has been ignored. Or maybe it hasn’t, maybe his soulmate is just shocked they aren’t being ignored anymore.

“I never forgot, I promise,” Eddie whispers, his first words traveling across the world to his soulmate’s skin. He closes his eyes once more, savoring this new information, the idea that his soulmate is alive and well, for the most part at least. He’s missed so much and he hates himself for not being there for his soulmate, but he thinks when they ever meet that he has a good explanation.

After that brief moment in the morning Eddie doesn’t have much time to think about anything else. There’s work, and then the earthquake, then worrying about Christopher, trying to find Hen, and finally, finally getting home to his son. Buck drives him, and after the day they’ve had he feels even closer with the man.

“Hi!” Chris says, waving one of his crutches eagerly as Eddie helps him into Buck’s car.

“Hey kiddo!” Buck says, all smiles and excitement, and Eddie realizes Buck wasn’t lying when he said he loved kids. Both Chris and Buck are naturally amiable people, but the way they get on with one another instantly makes Eddie’s heart grow warm and fond. He almost can’t believe he’d thought they’d be bitter rivals, mostly form Buck’s part, just a few days ago.

When they finally arrive at his house Eddie stops to get Chris out, taking one moment to turn back to Buck. “Thanks Buck.”

Buck smiles back, grinning wide even as he can see the exhaustion setting in around his eyes. “No problem G.I.”

Eddie rolls his eyes at that. “That name sucks.”

“I guess I’ll have to keep trying Eddie. Night!”

A shake of his head is all that Eddie gives him before helping Christopher back into the house. By the time he’s got him fed, bathed and ready for bed Eddie is even more exhausted than he thought possible. His eyes trail back to his words, nothing new yet which means his soulmate is still awake. He knows he can’t stay up much longer to wait, so he’ll have to reply to anything his soulmate might say tomorrow.

“I’m glad I found you again.” That’s what he chooses to whisper into the darkness of his room before letting his body finally, thankfully, drift off to a well deserved rest.

Buck’s nearly asleep when he sees the words come in, it’s the first time in over ten years he’s been able to watch them appear, written on him by an invisible hand. It’s the first time his heart has raced with excitement since Abby left and he tamps down on that feeling, of missing her, because this is his soulmate he’s getting a chance to talk to.

Even if Abby will come back, he believes, that doesn’t mean he needs to give up on this renewed shot to at least learn about his soulmate. He’s so tired though he’s not sure he’s going to be as eloquent as he wants. Part of Buck still remembers being a stupid little kid, too angry at the world, too guarded from the emotional abuse, and later physical too, that his parents dished out to believe his soulmate could really love him or want him. There were days he wished the last words his soulmate had said were still etched into his skin, so he could trace them with his fingertips, see someone saying they love him, telling him not to give up.

He reads what his soulmate said and smiles. “I’m glad too,” he says, but then thinks better of letting that be his last words. His brain is foggy from exertion though so the best he can come up with is a short reply that tries to explain a little about what happened. “Wasn’t dead but was in a coma for awhile.”

Buck’s pretty sure that’s a good enough explanation, it’s all he can muster at this hour as he sinks into the sheets and let’s sleep overtake him.

The next morning, or afternoon really because Buck sleeps in far too late, he awakens feeling a little refreshed. He yawns, stretching out before he looks at his arm, not surprised to see words already there.

“I’m sorry I abandoned you.” The words shock him and he almost blurts out something before he thinks better of it and bites his tongue.

Buck takes a moment to let his brain really get online and reread the message before he says what he wants his first words of the day to be. “You couldn’t have known.”

It’s simple, it absolves his soulmate of the blame he feels like they must be placing on themselves. Heck, he’d been placing a lot of blame on them too, felt it was another person that had left him, another person he wasn’t enough for, but in the end they’d thought he was the one that left. When he tries to think back to that time he winces, remembering how painful it was, how tormented and desperate he had felt all those years ago. Thinking back, it makes sense they’d think he’d died, might have even thought he’d did it himself with how depressed his messages must have seemed.

He shakes away the memories, he doesn’t want to go down that route again. Not when he just got his soulmate back in contact, not when he’s got a job he loves, when his sister has returned after years away and he’s got a woman he loves coming back to him. Eventually anyway.

Buck takes one last moment to feel the words on his arm, to commit them to memory, even gets a bit maudlin and kisses them, as if his soulmate could feel it through the bond, even though he knows they can’t, before he decides to get on with his day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THis took forever but I LEGIT didnt get to season 2 until last night so sorry! Also this is way shorter but those two eps had a LOT happening that couldn't really involve the soulmark business so its short for now.

**Author's Note:**

> I really need hel with how to work out this fic since I haven't watched season 2 yet so, any dvice for good things I can add in is appreciated!
> 
> Thanks to the Buddie Discord for being amazing and encouraging me to write this! <3
> 
> And as always a big thanks to all my Wonderful Readers for all the comments, kudos and subs!


End file.
